


Nine

by ashisfriendly



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5601049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisfriendly/pseuds/ashisfriendly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night can change everything. For Leslie Knope, it changes her entire life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [poehlaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/poehlaris/gifts).



> Happy birthday poehlaris! You've always been so amazing and supportive of everything I do and I hope you enjoy this fic. And happy new year, Parks fandom!

**One**

The box says two minutes, but it only takes one.

The plus sign stares at her, blue as the sky on a clear, summer day in the middle of Ramsett Park. She loves that color, she really does, but right now, it makes her eyes sting and her throat burn and she slumps down onto the bathroom floor and cries.

She cries because this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. She’s supposed to be married, or in love at least. She’s neither, she’s just a woman in her early thirties who had a one night stand and used birth control and a condom and somehow, his super sperm got to her very open eggs and now she’s pregnant.

Her hands shake as she scrolls through her phone. She has his number, which is a miracle, but she passes him and swipes back up to Ann.

She picks up after one ring.

“Hey,” Ann says, sighing in the way she does when she’s at work and stressed, but she wants to sound pleasant. The sound makes Leslie choke out a sob. “Leslie? Are you okay?”

“I’m pregnant,” Leslie says and saying it outloud sends a whole new wave of reality over her. “I’m pregnant.” She says it one more time just to drive it into her chest, deeper and deeper.

“What?” Ann says and Leslie covers her face with her free hand because she’s not sure she is a big enough masochist to say it again. “Les? How? Who--”

“Can you come over?” Leslie asks. “When you’re done.”

“Of course, yes, we’ll--yes, I will come over.” There’s some beeping and chatting in the background. “Hey, listen to me, everything is fine. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

“Okay.” Leslie reaches up and grabs the pregnancy test off the bathroom counter. The plus sign stares at her and it still claws at her chest, but Leslie makes herself look at it anyway. “Okay.”

“I love you.”

“Love you.”

Leslie hangs up and takes one more minute to shake out the nerves in her hands and try her best to take deep breaths like Ann would want her to. She pulls herself up off the floor and walks into her bedroom.

The boxes in the corner by her nightstand are toppling, and there’s a whole stack of Time magazines spread out on the foot of her bed. She was trying to find this specific interview last night, but she couldn’t find it. It may have also been a distraction tactic to the crippling panic that had been following her since her period never showed up a week ago. She stacks the magazines neatly on the floor and makes her bed. 

She calls her mom, asks her what her plans are for the weekend.

“Are you okay?” Marlene asks.

No, she wants to say, but she clears her throat and says, “Of course, I just wanted to talk to you, mom.”

“You’re sweet.”

There’s a few beats of silence before Marlene starts talking about her wine and Zumba group. Leslie listens, moving her t-shirt up and staring at the pale, flat expanse of her belly. 

**Two**

On day one, Ben always has two coffees.

Day ones are hard. Usually the department heads don’t have much time to register that the state is coming to offer support for their finances, and then they aren’t emotionally ready to deal with their city’s consequences. Ben’s an expert at anticipating the mood of a city’s government employees, and while there are always exceptions to this, he likes to think he’s in tune with his job, his work. 

“You’re a jerk,” Leslie Knope says, right to his face.

Now this is nothing new, but she’s very small and unassuming and complimented his shirt for Christ’s sake and now she’s calling him a jerk? The fact that her eyes are a color he’s never seen before and he caught the scent of vanilla as he followed her into the conference room is not helping anything.

“Excuse me?”

She gets out what she needs to, and it’s a very passionate argument about her coworkers and her department’s service, and maybe even something about buildings having feelings, but the facts are as they are. He doesn’t even bring up that the deputy director position, her position, is overkill and will probably be cut. 

He’s thankful for it, too, because when she stands up as he’s gathering his things, he notices her stomach. It’s sticks out, stretching the material of her red blouse. He was just visiting his brother for the weekend before he joined Chris in Pawnee to start another assignment, and his sister in law’s stomach looked very similar.

Ben stares too long, and when his eyes move back up to her face, her cheeks are pink, eyes a dark shade of cool blue. She narrows her eyes at him and he hurries out of the office. 

This is new. He’s understood that when jobs are cut, it hurts families, and when men beg to stay on because their wife is pregnant, he knew what he was doing. But something about Leslie Knope, standing in front of him with her nostrils flaring and face reddening in anger as she defends her entire department and the parks they maintain and services they provide, starts to rip at a seam.

She’s pregnant, and all she cares about is her city and her employees. It makes Ben’s head spin, he can’t stop thinking about her through the meetings with sanitation and the mayor’s office. He eats his awful Chinese take out on his incredibly uncomfortable bed and wonders about her. 

When he opens his laptop, ready to burn through a few episodes of Batman the Animated Series, there are two emails from her. There’s cost cutting strategies that keep everyone in her department on, crazy pulls from other departments for money for her insignificant, low priority department that could never work. He reads them anyway, wondering.

When he gets into the office, there are voicemails. She wants to set up meetings. He does. He sets up every single one she wants.

**Three**

It takes three unanswered phone calls for him to call her back.

Roy is younger than her, an architect who works from home and likes to talk about his vacations. He isn’t braggy about it, at least she doesn’t remember him being that way. That night, he bought her three shots and told her, her smile was beautiful and Leslie kissed him against the wall of the Snakehole Lounge.

They went to his small, but very classy apartment and had sex on his couch. It was good, it was a nice refresh from Justin, and made her feel sexy (Roy is a talker), and she didn’t regret it, even when he couldn’t find a subtle way to tell her to leave before they fell asleep. 

They exchanged numbers even though Leslie knew they wouldn’t see each other again, and his kiss goodbye was sweet. She went home with butterflies in her stomach but nothing latching onto her heart. It was perfect.

He finally calls her back on a Friday night, close to 10PM.

“Leslie? Wow, it’s been a bit, yeah? How are you?”

It’s quiet on the other end. He must be home. That’s good. Leslie takes a breath.

“Hi, Roy! Yeah, yeah, I’m good, I’m good. How are babe? I mean, how are you?”

Leslie rolls her eyes at herself and opens her fridge, taking out the whipped cream. Things are not good, Roy. Her government is imploding and she’s pretty sure she’s not going to have a job soon and oh yeah, she’s _pregnant with your baby_.

“I’m good, I just came back from Oregon, did I tell you I had family out there?” 

He did. He talks about his trip, about his mom, about the forests and the cool record store he found. Leslie is listening while she wonders if she should do this in person or not. Maybe this is better so he can digest what she says and she doesn’t have to look at his face to see how horrified he is. She doesn’t even know what she wants from him, really, but he deserves to know.

“Leslie? Leslie?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m -- I’m here, hi.”

“Sorry, I just, I asked what you were doing tonight. Did you want to come over?”

She can hear it, she can see the slide of his mouth, she can imagine him thinking about her. It’s nice, it’s very nice, to be wanted like this, in a purely carnal way, but she can’t. If she went over there for sex, he’d definitely notice her waistline.

“Roy, I’m pregnant.”

There’s a long silence so she chooses to fill it.

“It’s yours. It’s… it’s your baby. I am on birth control, I didn’t lie about that, and you did use a condom, so this is just some freak accident. Ah, shit, not a freak accident, it’s a blessing? Anyway -- wow -- I’m keeping it. It. The baby.” Leslie squirts some whipped cream in her mouth before she continues. “And I’m fine, it’s fine, the baby is fine. Work is awful. There’s some asshole trying to take down my entire department, the city, my job -- anyway, no. No. No, Leslie.

“Listen, I don’t need anything from you, at all. If you want to do… something, be… whatever, for the baby, that’s good, that’s great! But, don’t feel pressure to do anything you don’t want. And if you need time, that’s okay. Whatever you need, I just wanted you to know. You deserved to know.”

The pause is incredibly long and sad and it tears at her. She really doesn’t know what she wants from Roy, but she would like something from him for their baby. Roy is not her type, Roy couldn’t even name the Vice President. 

“Okay,” he says. His voice is low, incredibly low and nothing like he’s ever sounded to her before.

“Do you need time to--”

“No.”

“Oh, great, well, my next appointment is--”

“No, Leslie, no.” He clears his throat. “I don’t -- I don’t want any part of this.”

“Oh. Oh!” Leslie realizes then that, sure, she may not have known what she wanted from Roy, but for the baby, she was hoping for something. “Okay. Are you sure you don’t want to think about it?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

To his credit, Roy does call three days later. He found a form that releases all responsibility of biological fathers and he’s wondering if he can drop mail it to her, signed. She had the form ready, too. She tells him her address and he doesn’t even say goodbye before hanging up.

**Four**

At four in the morning, his phone buzzes.

Ben isn’t asleep, his neighbor on the other side of the wall makes sure of it. Ben’s not quite sure what goes on over there, but around three or four in the morning, there’s either sex or violence or partying happening that awakens him. On the boring nights, it’s just the TV being up too loud.

He unlocks his phone and opens the email. It’s from Leslie, which doesn’t surprise him in the least. He even smiles a little, because he needs this. Everything sucks more than usual in Pawnee, and in some ways it’s because of her. She makes him care, she makes him give a shit, and it’s really unhelpful. 

She also makes him laugh and feel welcome while wanting to tear his throat out. It’s a lot for him to take in and he wonders if the stress is good for the baby. The baby no one has talked about or brought up, but he’s seen her protectively put a hand over her belly when Ben tells her she can’t do something, as if his refusal is also offensive to her unborn offspring.

One morning, before an EBTF meeting, Leslie brought him coffee, and surprised him when he found it dressed just as he likes it -- with just a splash of cream. 

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Coffee.”

“Yeah, but… why?”

Considering she yelled at him the day before during the entirety of their lunch break, he figured it was a reasonable question.

“I’m trying to bribe you.”

Ben smiled, taking a sip of the coffee. Perfect.

“It’s working.”

“Tell me how it tastes,” Leslie asked. It was a bit pushy and her eyes were big, but she looked so earnest and cute.

“Very delicious, full of caffeine.”

“Damn.” She deflated, her mouth turned down in a pout. “Ann says I can’t have anything fun. She won’t even let me get a decaf mocha whip freeze with extra extra whipped cream.”

“Ann sounds harsh.”

“You’re worse.”

Ben put a hand over his chest. “Ouch.”

The next morning, he brought her a decaf mocha whip freeze with extra extra whipped cream. He even added sprinkles on top. She cried when he handed it to her.

Tonight, her email is about their meeting tomorrow. She’s going to be late so she wants to give him all the morning notes she would usually have. They’re just as festive and passionate and peppered with insults to him as usual. He laughs at them and opens his meeting notes document and adds them in so he can remember to bring them up tomorrow, because apparently, he brings up things he wants to shoot down in meetings now.

He emails back some clarifications and questions he has and she responds minutes after with more notes. At the end, she acknowledges the late hour and how he’s awake. 

_You’re up late, too_ , he writes. _Shouldn’t you be sleeping? How are you going to cope without the caffeine?_

He learns Leslie doesn’t sleep a lot. He learns that she stays up late and wakes up early. She’s drinking her morning smoothie that Ann showed her how to make and it tastes awful. Ben suggests adding sugar and she suggests he run into oncoming traffic. She immediately responds and says she’s sorry, she just misses sugar. Ben finds out she also misses drinking wine with Ann, being able to get through a whole day without napping, the smell of pickles, which now make her throw up, and coffee. She takes her coffee with four packets of sugar (or counting to three while pouring sugar into the coffee), a heavy sprinkling of chocolate powder and vanilla powder if they have it, and lots of cream. 

At six, she tells him she has to take a shower and Ben joins her. Not in the same shower, of course, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think of her while he’s in there.

**Five**

Leslie has caught Ben Wyatt looking at her five times today.

The government is back and Leslie wants to jump for joy but, physically, it’s hard to jump at all. Also, being back hardly means anything, anyway. There’s no money to buy literal poop and she feels just as restricted as she did when the government was down. 

Ben is in the Parks department a lot, trying to keep morale up with weird, awkward pep talks and when he’s done with that, he opens up a laptop or brings out a stack of papers to work on in the lobby. It’s strange, but she likes it. She might like him.

Which is ridiculous considering she’s very pregnant with a baby that is very much not his.

It doesn’t seem to stop the looks he gives her, though. The ones that last a little long and his dark, brownie colored eyes trail over her face and there’s a slight lift to the corner of his mouth before he gets back to work. There’s another look he gives her, one that makes his eyes a bit wide and a bit shiny like there’s an actual twinkle there. His face is soft and his shoulders aren’t tense and he’s bubbling with something she can’t quite put her finger on. He gave her that look after she pitched the Harvest Festival and sometimes he gives it to her when she talks about the importance of cotton candy.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I can take care of it.”

Leslie shakes her head, pushing Ben away from her. “I want to give the presentation.”

With the pregnancy, Leslie has gotten terrible migraines. Migraines that cause her to vomit and shake and she can’t eat very much. All that helps is a pitch black room and wet wash cloths. Which isn’t very helpful when you need to give a presentation at the Chamber of Commerce for businesses to give their services to the Harvest Festival. Also, no pressure, but the Harvest Festival might fail and her entire department is counting on it to work.

Leslie leans her head back, shutting her eyes as the car moves through traffic. 

“Do you need me to pull over?” Ben asks.

“No, no, I’m fine.”

Except she’s not fine. She goes for the door handle and Ben yells, “Good Lord!” as he pulls over just in time for her to open the door and throw up. She vomits again, Ben’s hands going to her hair to hold it away from her face, and when she’s done, his fingers move to her neck, to her back, rubbing in soft, circular motions that are so soothing and nice that she wants to cry.

“Let me take you home,” he whispers, “I’ll give the presentation and I promise it will be okay.”

It sounds nice, the dark room and the wash cloth and maybe even some music, but no, she has to see this through. Her department is counting on her, stupid baby migraine or not. 

“No, let’s do it.”

They argue about it for another minute before he helps her sit back in the car and they go. She delivers her speech, and smiles at the applause, and even lets Ben take over when she goes to questions. She sits with her eyes closed and she must look like a crazy person but it feels good. The darkness, Ben’s voice spouting facts and numbers, the town wanting to help. It’s music to her ears.

“Okay, time to go home,” Ben whispers, helping her up. 

His hands are so big, have they always been this big? Also he smells good, like laundry detergent and the most basic man deodorant smell and fresh from the copier paper. She lays the seat back in his car and closes her eyes the whole way home. Ben tries to find a classical station, swears dropping out of his mouth in cute, angry bursts.

At her house, she tells him she needs to throw up again so he hurries to open the door. They make it in time and he holds her hair back again. He is kind enough not to mention the stacks of boxes and old scrapbooks and bird houses. The house is an even bigger mess since she’s been cleaning out the guestroom to make a nursery. 

“Should I call Ann?” Ben asks as Leslie brushes her teeth with her eyes closed.

Leslie rinses and spits. “No, no, she’s at work.” She wipes her mouth and pushes past him, squinting to help herself see through her house. He follows. “There’s a system.”

“Uh, okay.”

Leslie gives instructions and Ben is quick to close all the curtains and turn off all of her nightlights. In the bathroom, she changes into sweatpants that are almost too tight and an old Pawnee Porpoises t-shirt. 

When she walks back into the room, it’s practically pitch black. She’s never gotten it this dark before and she’s not sure what Ben’s done, but she’s grateful. She also can’t see him so she puts her arms out and feels around to her bed. She slides over and her hip brushes him and he springs back, mumbling an apology.

“What else do you need?” he asks.

“You really don’t have to do this.”

“Do you want music or something? A candle?”

She smiles, snuggling into her pillow. Ben covers her with the blankets and she sighs. The throbbing is already going down but the nausea is relentless.

“No, no music, no candles. Thank you, Ben.”

“I texted Ann from your phone, I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s okay.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to… I’ll be right back.”

Leslie nods as he walks out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. 

She must fall asleep, because she wakes up in the darkness. Her headache is gone and her stomach grinds together in hunger. She pushes herself out of bed and rubs her tummy as she walks to the kitchen.

The dishwasher is running and when she opens the fridge, there’s a large tupperware full of chicken noodle soup and styrofoam containers from JJ’s.

There’s a note taped to the tupperware.

Waffles from JJ’s, soup from me. There’s crackers in the cupboard, ginger ale in the fridge door. Feel better. -- Ben

Leslie eats the waffles now and saves the soup for breakfast tomorrow. 

**Six**

Ben doesn’t leave work until six. That’s nothing particularly new, he’s been putting in longer hours because of the Harvest Festival and trying to keep Pawnee flowing with the regulations. City Hall is nice after five anyway, the lights are low and the cleaning crews create a nice hum over the whole building. The polisher is very soothing.

“Oh.”

Leslie looks at him, the doorknob to the Parks department still gripped in her hand. Ben smiles at her, because he always finds himself smiling at her.

“It’s late.”

“I could say the same for you,” she says, nudging his arm with her elbow. 

They walk together down the hall, their steps echoing off the walls in a pleasant rhythm. Maybe he likes an empty City Hall, but an empty City Hall with Leslie Knope is even better. She’s still in pure workmode, as if efficiency and passion are just buzzing around her, infecting him. Just being around her makes him want to lay out a few spreadsheets and go to town.

Leslie groans as they walk down the steps toward the street. “Can I trust you with a secret? I’ll pay you to keep it.”

Ben’s stomach twists a little and he has to put his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking. He’s imagined her telling him she’s in love with him or even likes him in many different ways. Some are perverted and awful and he’d never repeat them and some are sticky sweet and romantic. This seems to be somewhere in the middle. _If_ that’s what she’s doing.

“Sure,” he says.

“I’m going to eat five waffles and a million pounds of whipped cream.”

Ben tries not to look disappointed.

“Ann will kill you.”

“I know she will, but I need it.”

“I guess I should come with you, to supervise. That’s a lot of sugar and waffles,” Ben teases.

Leslie looks up at him, her smile a little shy. It makes his chest squeeze. 

“Yeah, you’re right. You better come with me.”

“You do owe me for keeping your secret.”

“The piles of food will be on me.”

Leslie orders five waffles and as much whipped cream as they can bring out. He orders a BLT and fries. She eats most of his fries and all of the waffles and when she’s full, she leans back, hand on her belly. She rubs her stomach in slow circles and keeps plucking fries off his plate. 

“I have a feeling me and him are going to go through a lot of whipped cream,” she says, looking down at her stomach. Her eyes flick back up to Ben.

This is the first time either of them have fully acknowledged that she’s pregnant. Sure, skipping caffeine and talking about fatigue and headaches have been around, but actually acknowledging the human baby inside her? This is a first.

“You’re going to run Food and Stuff out of business,” Ben jokes.

She smiles, leaning her head to the side, against the back of the booth. A piece of hair falls over her face and he wants to move it away. Then maybe kiss her.

“I”m worried about him,” she says, so softly he’s scared he wasn’t supposed to hear, but she glances at Ben before continuing. “My dad died when I was ten and it was sad. Not having a dad was… not great.”

Ben grabs a fry and leans over the table, handing it to her. She takes it and puts it between her lips, eating slowly. Sadly.

“I had a dad and a mom who hated each other and consequently, made my life kind of shitty.” Ben clears his throat. “And sad and not great.”

Ben assumed there was no father, but he really didn’t know for sure. Knowing, he’s both relieved and pissed off.

“And I work a lot,” she adds.

“Believe me, you can afford to cut back,” Ben says and hands her another fry. She bites off half and throws the rest back at him. They share a smile and Ben picks at a piece of lettuce on his plate. “You’ll be a good mom, Leslie. It’ll be enough for him. More than enough.”

She looks at her stomach and rubs the bump.

“Yeah, but I want even more than that for him, you know?”

Ben looks away from her. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand whatever she’s going through, and he never will. He nods anyway and she throws another piece of french fry at him. They order another plate of fries and forget about dysfunctional families while trying to catch fries in each other’s mouths.

**Seven**

Her water breaks seven hours into the Harvest Festival.

Which ruins all her chances of getting Ben on the ferris wheel and kissing him at the top.

The contractions started earlier, but Leslie ignored them, and now she really doesn’t know what to do. She hurries behind the ring toss booth and gives herself a few pep talks, considers a few exit options, but she starts crying anyway. Leslie is a cryer but pregnancy has made her almost insanely teary.

She gets out her phone and texts Ben. She super, very casually, asks him to meet her behind the ring toss booth. He’s there in seven minutes.

“Don’t freak out,” she starts, wiping her tears away, “but my water just broke and I don’t know what to do, I’ve failed the Harvest Festival and--”

“What?” Ben asks. His eyes trail down to the ground beneath her and then back up to her face. He grabs her shoulders. “Are you okay? Oh my god, we have to go. Hospital! No, the first aid tent? No they would just send you to a hospital. Leslie, your water broke.”

She’s not sure how, but watching Ben freak out about her going into labor helps ease the tension off of her, like he’s a human sponge and just touching her is pulling some of the anxiety from her pores. 

“Yes, my water broke.” A contraction hits her and she doubles over, holding her belly. Ben wraps his arm around her. “I’m going to have a baby.”

“Your baby is coming,” he says, more to himself than anything. He starts walking around the perimeter of the grounds, toward the parking lot, holding her up. “Baby’s coming. It’s okay, everything's okay, the baby is coming.” He digs in his pocket for his keys. “How far apart are your contractions?”

Leslie blinks, looking up at him. “I don’t know.”

“Okay well that one was like a minute ago, right? So we’ll track this one.”

“Since when do you know so much about labor and having babies?”

She watches the skin along his neck turn pink. “I read an article. Just in case.”

Leslie wraps her arm around his waist and squeezes.

On their way to the hospital, Leslie texts Ron and Ann. Ron has everything covered and Ann is going to get away as soon as she can to meet them at the hospital. Ben helps her into a wheelchair, helps her fill out forms, and talks to nurses and doctors, who mistake him for the father more than once. They don’t correct them.

After the excitement of getting to the hospital and checking everythig out, there’s only waiting. It must be boring for Ben, but for Leslie it’s full of periodic contractions that make her grip sheets and curse. Ben asks if she wants ice chips or to squeeze his hand every time. During one, she takes him up on the hand offer and he tries to hide himself rubbing the pain away afterward. Ann shows up two hours later. 

“Thanks, Ben. You can go, if you want,” Ann says, handing Leslie her iPod and earbuds.

“Oh, yeah, well,” Ben starts, shrugging a lot and looking around the room. “I mean, yeah, but no, I think it’s fine. They’re fine, I just think it’s better, just in case, if I’m here, maybe? I mean just in case. Like, it’s fun here, right? Fun. It’s fun. Fine. It’s fine, here.”

Ann looks at Leslie, arching an eyebrow. Leslie darts her eyes down, a blush spreading to her cheeks. 

“I think it’s just better if I’m here, you know? Just if--”

“Okay, okay,” Ann says, putting Ben out of his awkward misery. “I’d love a coffee, if you don’t mind.” 

“Great! Yes! Coffee. Um, bye.”

He leaves so fast, Leslie can’t even wave goodbye. A contraction hits and Ann helps her through it and then slaps her shoulder.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?”

“Ben likes you. Like… likes you, likes you. Like wants to marry you likes you.”

“Marry me?”

Ann laughs, shaking her head. “If he comes back with a stuffed animal, you’re doomed.”

“Oh Ann, you beautiful, graceful gazelle,” Leslie says, leaning her head on Ann’s shoulder, “I’m already doomed.

He comes back with a coffee and a stuffed otter holding a baby otter. Ann laughs and Leslie snuggles it to her chest, sticking her tongue out at Ann.

Robert Joseph Knope is born at 1:07AM. Ann is holding her hand and Ben is behind her head, eating ice chips. They ask him to cut the cord but he gives the honor to Ann who does it with great aplomb. 

Ann gives Leslie her new baby boy and Leslie is shaking and crying as she holds him. He has her nose, she can see it, and his hair is light, his little eyes closed so she can’t see what color they are. Ann says they change anyway. He’s warm and so small and her heart is expanding so big she’s sure it’s going to burst out of her chest.

Ben smiles down at her with a new look, one she hasn’t quite seen before. It’s almost like the one he gives her after he calls her things like a ninja crossed with a Jedi, but it’s like the one he has for her when they eat lunch together and he tells her there’s whipped cream on her chin, too. It’s almost like she’s seeing every look he’s ever given her and there’s something there behind his eyes she should understand, but she doesn’t. 

It’s probably because she’s tired. Tired and very, very happy.

**Eight**

Ben wakes up at eight o’clock to the sound of a baby crying.

Of Robert crying, or Robby as Leslie has already started calling him. Ben jolts awake and looks at Leslie, soundly sleeping as Robby cries in his clear, plastic, rolly bassinet thing. Andy tried to get in it and roll around when he visited yesterday. 

Now, Robby is in there, crying, while Leslie sleeps. Ben gets up and walks over to the bassinet, trying to shush the baby. When that doesn’t work, Ben reaches down and picks him up, careful as all hell to hold his head right and make sure he’s close to Ben’s body. He hasn’t held him yet, awkwardly declining any and all offers to do so even though he’s only left the hospital to shower and grab JJ’s.

“Hey, shh, your mom is sleeping and I know she has the food but come on, give her a break,” Ben whispers, bouncing on his toes as he walks around the room. Robby quiets a little bit, the wailing cries replaced by soft sounds of fussing. “There ya go. You’re not so scary.”

Ben smiles to himself, leaning down to get closer to Robby. He smells clean and wonderful, an inexplicable smell that is so soothing Ben almost wants to sit down, but he’s afraid of the crying.

He keeps walking, keeps bouncing Robby, and sings Joshua Tree in order. He is not a singer by any means, but Ben likes the way Robby looks at him when he sings Where the Streets Have No Name. By the time he gets to Running to Stand Still, Robby is asleep again. 

Ben sits back in his chair and takes a breath, relieved that nothing disastrous happened. He slides down in the chair so he can rest Robby on his stomach. He inhales.

“Hey.”

Ben holds onto Robby tighter in surprise, thankful his impulse isn’t to just throw him in the air. Ben looks at Leslie and she’s smiling at them, her eyes half closed and her smile sleepy. 

“Hey,” Ben says. “He was crying.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t wake up.”

“It’s okay, he’s fine. We’re fine.”

Leslie’s smile grows. She slowly sits up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her hospital gown falls off her shoulder and he sees a lot of her chest, but not all of it. So many freckles. 

She sighs and presses her hands over her cheeks.

“Look at you guys.”

Ben glances down at Robby before looking back at Leslie. “Look at us.”

“Please tell me not to say what I want to say.”

“Don’t say it,” Ben says. His chest tightens and his stomach turns, and he almost begs her to say it.

“Thank you.” She rubs her eyes again and takes a drink of her water on the bedside table.

There’s a long silence, and Ben wills himself to sit still, to calm his breathing and every feeling he has for her to subside. Robby breaks the silence by giving out a little cry.

“He’s probably hungry.” Leslie stretches her arms out to him and Ben gets up, taking the two steps to her bedside. 

He leans forward, trying not to stare at her exposed plain of freckles and pale skin, or notice the spark in her eye at having Robby so close again. She reaches up and their hands and arms brush and Ben can’t keep from shaking, wishing this was a universe where he could snuggle in next to them and hold Leslie while she tries to feed Robby. She inhales when Robby settles into her arms and when Ben moves back, she whispers, “Stay.”

“What?” Ben asks, his voice just as soft as hers.

Leslie looks up at him. Ben is amazed at the bright hue of her eyes in the dull lighting of the hospital. Of course she’s so alive, so bright, so brilliant, no matter where she is. Ben is only an inch from her so he lets his forehead rest on hers. Her eyes shut and he lets his own eyelids fall.

“Thank you,” Leslie says.

Ben nudges her nose with his and then leans down just enough for their lips to touch. She sighs and pushes against his mouth and Ben’s skin buzzes with electricity. He cradles her face in one of his hands, pushing her limp hair behind her ear. They break away just long enough for Ben to realize he misses her and kisses her again, this time bumping his lips with her teeth.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says.

“I’m not.”

“I just shouldn’t have kissed you for the first time right now.” 

Ben rubs his nose on hers. Leslie laughs and looks back down to Robby. Ben kisses her head.

“It was a perfect time. Just shh, I want to savor this moment right now,” she says. Ben backs away. “No, come here!”

Ben sits on the bed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She snuggles into him and it takes a moment of adjusting before they both sigh, leaning into each other.

“Food time for Robby. It’s about to get really sexy,” Leslie says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, just remember, they didn’t always look this way.”

Ben nuzzles his face into her hair as Leslie tries to get Robby to latch on, and when she curses Ben holds her tighter. Robby finally starts eating and Leslie sighs, leaning back into Ben.

“I’ve never been this tired in my entire life.”

Ben watches Robby eat. “You pushed a human baby out of you. I think you get to be tired.”

“How’s the Harvest Festival?” she asks.

Ben pinches her arm, and digs in his pocket for his phone. Leslie closes her eyes, sighing as Ben tells her all the text updates April has been sending him. 

**Nine**

When Robby’s nine months, Leslie walks down the aisle with him in her arms, and whether or not they have a normal, or perfect family, Leslie doesn’t worry about Robby growing up without a dad anymore.


End file.
